Knox school board to consider anti-TNReady resolutions

Fountain City Elementary School Principal Tina Holt talks about strategies they use to prepare students for the TNReady assessment on Thursday, April 13, 2017.

Buy Photo

Madison Lynch, 10, a fourth grader at Fountain City Elementary School works independently on classwork, a week before TNReady standardized tests are administered Thursday, April 13, 2017.(Photo: CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL)Buy Photo

"We've seen there is a true lack of reliability and validity so far in our new assessment and that's been a continued problem for years," Rountree said Monday during a board work session.

The board will also vote for the second time on a resolution to amend the state's letter-grading system for individual schools, which assigns A to F grades based on student achievement and growth. The board approved a similar resolution in February when the new school-level evaluation system was introduced.

Rountree: TNReady 'is not a reliable indicator'

A third resolution opposes the use of Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program data, of which TNReady is a part, for students in grades 3-5. TNReady tests, the state's annual assessment, will count for 15 percent of students' grades in the spring semesters.

"The use of that test score as part of their grade is not a reliable indicator of their classroom performance," Rountree said, referring particularly to students in third grade.

Buy Photo

TNReady standardized tests sit locked away in an office at Fountain City Elementary School on Thursday, April 13, 2017.(Photo: CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL)

Board member Lynne Fugate said she had heard concerns in the past from teachers who felt students may not take tests seriously if there's not an impact to their grade. Rountree, though, said she didn't think it was a concern in early grades.

"Anecdotally from my years in an elementary school, I didn't really see kids not trying in grades 3 through 5 and purposefully blowing things off," she said. "I will tell you I did see kids crying and upset."

Thousands of tests scored incorrectly this year

Earlier this year, the Tennessee Department of Education acknowledged that 9,400 tests were scored incorrectly, including tests at three Knox County high schools. Although the errors were corrected, the problems were just the latest in a series of high-profile issues tied to the rollout of the state's TNReady testing.

In the first year of the test, students were unable to take the exams online due to issues with the vendor's servers. The state then switched to paper exams and canceled the test for middle school and elementary students when the company couldn't deliver enough paper copies.

"That is our commitment," McQueen said to state representatives gathered for a Joint House Education hearing. "When we started this year that was our commitment and when we ended that was our commitment. We didn't meet that."

Knox County school board member Jennifer Owen said during Monday's work session that lawmakers were "pretty upset about the testing" during the hearing and that they asked very pointed questions. "They seemed to be quite angry," she said, adding that they may be more responsive to the school board's resolutions than they have in the past.